Life Match

The Test

Real Quick Trigger Warning: This is a dystopian novel. Stop commenting that the book is 'cruel' or whatever. WHEN THE HELL HAVE YOU READ A DYSTOPIAN THAT DOESN'T SOUND TERRIBLE.

You've been warned.

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I watch the sun sink below the horizon. My best friend, Jericho, is next to me, his round face illuminated in the glow of the sun. His golden locks appear to glow as he looks at me with his warm brown eyes, and quickly goes back to looking out across the water. We've had this ritual together since middle school.

However, soon we won't see each other at all. I'm look at my graduation gown and frown. Tomorrow we will have to test into the Life Partner system. I grab Jericho's hand and he squeezes it. In one simple action I feel a ton better. I hope I will be matched with him, but am afraid I won't, considering how people who have already befriended each other don't tend to match. Something to do with the Friend Zone effect. 

We leave with just enough daylight to make it home before curfew. Before we do, we toss our caps off the cliff and into the water.

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I lace my fingers through my friend Jericho's hand. He squeezes my hand, but quickly lets it drop. We're eighteen now, about to register for the Life Partner Program. After we sign our name, we will be forbidden physical contact until we receive our match. Then, the only contact will be between them. I notice Azariah Daniels watching me from across the room. It's creepy, and I draw closer to Jericho. I pray I don't get him as my match.

In the Before Days, people ended up with whoever they wanted, however that became a problem when people began falling out of love and having affairs and other things now deemed illegal. The men were losing money to the women; kids were growing up in broken homes. Some refused to pay for their children, sending some into poverty. Others stopped signing papers for divorce, or committing mass homicide suicides with their children. There were women who even used the money they were paid to raise their children on themselves, and some extreme cases where couples had their baby murdered in the womb.

Basically, everything went to hell.

And then came the Life Partner Accords.

They pretty much stated that humans can't be trusted to find happiness; so on the day of your eighteenth birthday, you enter a one week program to find yourself a mate. In addition, the female is now in complete submission to their husband, leaving the men in charge of almost everything. The Anti- Life Partners argued that we'd set ourselves back a thousand years but allowing such treatment of women, but it was quickly shut down. This country was founded under God, and the bible talks about wives being submitted to their husbands all the time.

I get my login sheet and pick a computer next to Jericho. He glares at me and moves to a different seat, knowing I'd planned to cheat off him. We'd had this conversation before, when we were alone in his room one day.

"But I want us to be Life Partners!" I whined. I was trying to figure out every aspect of his life so I would know the right answers to the questions.

"We have to let fate decide for us," He scolds me, "If we're supposed to be together, we'll end up together."

I pout and he ruffles my hair, "You're adorable when you're mad."

I roll my eyes, "I'm not adorable."

He laughs and I push him off his bed.

I sigh at the memory and begin filling in the questionnaire. There are different questions. Most of the matching type for the girls is done by emotional versus the boys by physical attraction. I finish quickly and wait for the computer to compile my results. They are written in code, so I don't understand any of it, and I hand it to the proctor, who directs me to a waiting room filled with other anxiously waiting girls. At the end of the day, they send us all home.